Rep. Al Green: Black people should consider not going to White House until Trump apologizes for NFL comments

Andrew Kaczynski, CNN |
9/29/2017, 8:53 a.m.

(CNN) -- Rep. Al Green, a Texas Democrat, said Wednesday that black Americans should consider declining White House invitations until President Donald Trump apologizes for his comments calling NFL players who kneel during the National Anthem a "son of a bitch."

"It is just unconscionable," Green said on the "Joe Madison Show" on SiriusXM radio. "I have to borrow your phrase, unconscionable, that we would allow this President to do this with impunity. Every black person in this country ought to be up in arms about what he said about mothers."

Green said the President would need to apologize for his comments and offer atonement.

"Calling them dogs, dogs," the Texas congressman continued. "Every black person ought to give some consideration, if you get an invitation, as to whether you will go to the White House until he either retracts that statement or does something else to atone, because this requires atonement. This cannot go unchallenged. He has insulted the mothers of the country. These are the people who bring life to the world. I refuse to allow it to go unchallenged"

Earlier in the interview, Green said the President's comments were a new low.

"He took discourse to a new level of indecency. For him to say 'SOBs.' He's referring to players who are grown men. To say to those grown men, 'Your mothers are dogs.' If you were there, if you were there to exercise your constitutional right, to free speech, to express yourself, 'If you would dare do this, your mother's a dog.' That says that the son is the son of a dog. Son of a dog. Now listen, you know that in our community, there are certain lines you don't cross. You don't talk about a man's mother in that fashion. There are consequences when you do that. There are consequences."